Posts Tagged ‘probe’

A member of the commission who carried out the follow-up to the United Nations Human Rights Commission’s Goldstone Report has been tapped to serve as the third member of the newest probe committee.

Former New York Supreme Court Judge Mary McGowan Davis is to take the place of British Lebanese attorney Amal Alamuddin, who declined the invitation to serve on the panel led by Canadian law professor William Schabas. The two will be joined by Doudou Diene.

The commission is intended to investigate whether the Israel Defense Forces were guilty of committing war crimes in countering terrorist activity this summer in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem; however, the panel is beginning its work without even acknowledging the basic definition of Hamas as a terrorist organization.

At present, Israel has decided not to cooperate with the panel in its investigation, based on past experience with probes that led to skewed conclusions based on false Gaza testimony and Israeli evidence omitted from reports.

Israel is not likely to cooperate with a “kangaroo court” style investigation under the auspices of a committee set up by the biased United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made that clear in his response to Canadian legal professor William Schabas, the head of the committee, who advised on Tuesday that it is in Israel’s “best interest” to cooperate with his investigation into Israel’s defense against Palestinian Arab terror — and particularly Hamas efforts to terrorize — Israeli citizens.

Netanyahu spoke with reporters in a news briefing following a meeting with New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, who flew to Israel to show his solidarity with the Jewish State.

“New York has always had a special relationship with Israel,” Cuomo told reporters. “As Hamas and other terrorist organizations continue to threaten Israel, now is the time to deliver that message of solidarity in person.”

The prime minister, who was asked whether Israel will cooperate with the UNHRC investigation, had some advice of his own for the committee (video is in Hebrew).

“The UN Human Rights Council gives legitimacy to murderous terrorist organizations such as Hamas and ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria),” he said.

“Instead of inquiring into Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians and its use of the residents of Gaza as human shields, and instead of inquiring into the massacres that Assad is perpetrating against the Syrian people or that ISIS is perpetrating against the Kurds, the UN has decided to come and check Israel – the only democracy in the Middle East, a democracy which is acting legitimately to defend its citizens against murderous terrorism.

The man chosen to head the United Nations Human Rights Council’s latest probe into the war in Gaza won’t state clearly whether Hamas is a terror group. Moreoever, he says “some believe Israel ‘gets off easy’ at the UN Security Council.”

International Law Professor William Schabas, appointed to head the UNHRC probe into Operation Protective Edge, also claimed in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 television news anchor Danny Kushmaro Tuesday that past comments he has made on the record, accusing Israel’s government leaders of war crimes were “exaggerated.”

Schabas was questioned about his alleged bias against Israel, which has led the foreign ministry to advise the prime minister not to cooperate with the investigation.

The man selected to investigate Israel’s counter terror operation against Hamas and allied terrorists in Gaza, Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem this summer said a year ago that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would be his choice of a leader to send to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

Israel’s Channel 2 television news anchor Danny Kushmaro began the interview with a polite, if not cordial tone.

“Good evening Professor Schabas. Shall we say congratulations?”

“Uh… perhaps,” Schabas answered carefully.

Kushmaro then went right for the jugular, asking the UN investigator about his suggestion that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would be his “favorite” world leader to be brought before the International Criminal Court at The Hague to face war crimes charges.

“Not President Assad of Syria, Not Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal – you said, ‘Netanyahu.’ Can you explain why?’ the interviewer asked pointedly.

Schabas looked uncomfortable.

“We were having a discussion about the International Criminal Court,” he said, “and the fact that the International Criminal Court had focused all of its attention on African countries. I had referred to a statement by Archbishop Tutu, where he had said, ‘Tony Blair should be brought before the International Criminal Court to show that it can deal with Western countries as well as with countries from the south, and particularly from Africa.

“And so I said, well, uh, my favorite would be Netanyahu. I was, of course, echoing what was in the Goldstone Report, which is that the International Criminal Court should deal with the conclusions of the Goldstone Report, concluding the possibility that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed during Operation Cast Lead.

“But as you know the International Criminal Court never did address those matters. So that was the context of my comment.”

Finance Minister Yair Lapid quickly pointed out in subsequent comments that the Goldstone Report was compiled during the administration of then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, not Netanyahu.

Schabas has also said he believes that former President Shimon Peres should stand trial before the Court as well.

The interviewer asked him whether he, as a professor of international law, would advise his own client to cooperate with “such an investigation” given what he had just heard.

“I think this is a great exaggeration of some of the statements. I expressed opinions about political leaders in the past. Is there a human being in Israel who’s never expressed political opinions about leaders in Israel? Once someone who sits in a commission or as a judge has to do is to put these things behind them, and start fresh, and this is of course what I intend to do.”

Kushmaro: Do you plan to investigate Hamas crimes as well? Are you really able to investigate a terror organization who threatens its own people?

Schabas: “I cannot tell you what the commission is going to do in terms of interpreting its mandate because I’m only one member and I haven’t had a meeting with the other commissioners. We will have to agree on the interpretation…

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Monday named a panel of three in Geneva to determine whether human rights violations were committed in the conflict between Israel and Arab terrorists this summer.

The investigation by the UN Human Rights Council is to be led by a known critic of Israel, international Canadian legist William Schabas.

In the past, Schabas called for the indictment of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and former President Shimon Peres before the International Criminal Court at The Hague. He accused Israel of having committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009, and praised the author of the infamous UNHRC Goldstone Report – former South African Judge Richard Goldstone, who himself had second thoughts about the conclusions his panel reached after the report was submitted.

Also participating in the three-member panel will be Doudou diene of Senegal, a past UN special investigator on racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia; and British-Lebanese attorney Amal Alamuddin, engaged to marry Hollywood actor George Clooney.

The three-member panel tasked with the probe is specifically assigned to find those responsible for “violations of international humanitarian law” in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and Gaza.

Basically, a witch hunt.

The Foreign Ministry announced Israel does not plan to cooperate with the investigation, which it compared to a ‘kangaroo court.’

“When the decision about the creation of the committee was announced on July 23, the prime minister and foreign ministry announced the the human rights council had long ago become the Terrorists’ Rights Council, a kangaroo court in which the results of its ‘investigations’ are predetermined,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“If we need more evidence of this, the appointment of the chairman of the committee, whose opinions and positions on Israel are known to all, proves beyond any doubt that Israel cannot expect justice from this body, and that the committee’s report is already written. What has just been determined is who will sign it.”

Will the State of Israel at last investigate the actions of MK Hanin Zoabi? The decision is up to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan.

But if they give a green light, police have recommended the government take a look into whether MK Hanin Zoabi has crossed the line into criminal incitement with her constant barbs against the State of Israel.

The straw that may have broken the camel’s back, finally, was an interview Zoabi gave – and a follow-up – in the wake of the terrorist kidnapping of three yeshiva boys who were hitchhiking home from Gush Etzion on June 12. Zoabi declared on TLV1 Radio that the kidnappers – discovered by Israeli intelligence to irrefutably to have been members of the Hamas terrorist organization – were “not terrorists.”

Instead, Zoabi declared, “They are not terrorists. I do not agree with you. They see no other way to change their reality and have to restort to these measures until Israel sobers up and feels the suffering of the others.”

In fact, she later added that perhaps it was Israel’s Defense Forces who were the terrorists, and maybe the boys weren’t kidnapped at all. She then accused the Palestinian Authority security forces of “treason” for cooperating with Israel to search for the kidnapped boys.

Knesset members from one end of the political spectrum to the other condemned her remarks with many calling for her dismissal – but Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein pointed out that he has no recourse to do so under Israeli law.

Zoabi has often made remarks — and acted — in ways that are more in line with representing the interests of the Palestinian Authority than those of the State of Israel, in whose parliament she participates.

In 2010 she supported and even participated in an illegal flotilla intended to violate Israel’s legal boundaries and break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza. That blockade is a defense against terrorist imports of weapons and ammunition that are used in attacks on civilians and IDF soldiers.

The participation of an Israeli parliamentarian whose loyalty is questionable is deeply troubling because as a member of the government, she automatically has access to highly sensitive security information.

Several years ago, her predecessor in the Balad party, former MK Azmi Bishara, fled the country just prior to being charged with treason. Bishara was suspected of receiving large sums of money in exchange for handing over information on sensitive military sites and other security information to the enemy during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. He has since traveled from one enemy Arab nation to the next, broadcasting poisonous lectures against the State of Israel and recruiting terrorists for attacks against the country. For a long time he also managed to also draw a Knesset member’s pension for his time served as a legislator, since he succeeded in fleeing abroad before ever being charged with a crime.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman rebuked the U.S. and Europe after their calls for a “thorough” investigation of the deaths of two Palestinian Authority Arabs in Nakba Day riots last week.

The two Arab teens were killed on May 15, allegedly by IDF soldiers, during violence outside the Ofer Prison, located next to the PA capital of Ramallah in Samaria.

“”We don’t need an American request to investigate the subject,” Liberman told reporters Wednesday while visiting Samaria’s Ariel University. “I reject any request and the hypocrisy we see worldwide.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki called for a “prompt and transparent” investigation in response to a reporter’s question during a briefing on Capitol Hill.

European Union missions in the Palestinian Authority capital of Ramallah and in Jerusalem made similar statements. “We reiterate the need for security forces, whether Israeli or Palestinian, to refrain from the use of lethal force, except in cases where there is a real and imminent threat to life,” they said.

In response, Liberman pointed out that the Israeli army is the “most moral” military force in the world.

“I am saddened these demands don’t come up in other cases,” he commented. “In Syria around 170,000 people have been killed and I didn’t see any act or request from the international community to investigate those murders. Hamas executed two men in Gaza after accusing them of spying for Israel, both without a lawyer or fair trial. I didn’t see any request to investigate that [either],” he added.

As Liberman has pointed out, the video footage that has made the rounds was posted after several days and may have been edited, as such videos often are. Leftists groups with an agenda hoping to incriminate Israel often show only part of an incident, or judiciously edit the footage to falsify the information altogether, as in the Al Dura case.

At the end of the day, regardless of the outcome, one must ask the question:

Why were these two young men there in the first place, during a violent Nakba Day riot at Ofer Prison?